THAT BASTARD, PUCCINI!

Park Theatre

★★★★★

“Do not miss this show – it is a masterpiece”

What does it mean to be an artist? Is it an occupation or a way of life? In James Inverne’s triumphant new play, That Bastard, Puccini! (directed by Daniel Slater), we meet two great Italian composers of the 19th century and get an insight into what might have been their motivations – and sacrifices – to not only create, but to be crowned the best. The result is a witty and deeply moving piece of theatre that celebrates artistry.

Puccini (Sebastien Torkia) and Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) live in Milan at a time when composers are all trying to claim the spot as “the new Verdi”. When Puccini filches Leoncavallo’s idea to write an opera inspired by Henri Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de Bohème (Scenes of Bohemian Life), they enter a public race to see who can complete their opera first in what will later be known as the “Battle of the Bohèmes”. What’s remarkable about this show is how seamlessly the text, directing, design and acting work together to establish a unique mode of performance. The characters themselves know they are in a play to present significant moments from the rivalry to the audience. It’s a bold but brilliant choice by Inverne and Slater, supported with beautiful costume and set by Carly Brownbridge and exquisite lighting by Katy Morison. Here, the stage becomes a space that deposits the composers’ public competition alongside their private pressures.

The show starts in a living room with an enraged Leoncavallo telling his wife, Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood) that Puccini has stolen his idea. Under a bright spotlight, Puccini enters to eavesdrop on their discussion and occasionally offer his own input to the audience – Leoncavallo and Berthe cannot see him. Puccini barks protests and throws his hands up in defence to the audience until Leoncavallo turns to greet him and the spotlight on Puccini goes off – NOW he has entered the room. And the sweeping destruction of the fourth wall continues. A great moment is where Puccini turns to Berthe and asks her to momentarily play his wife. “There are only three of us! Then you can go back to being Berthe.”, Puccini urges her. Through similar dramatics, the characters present other key players in the story. Torkia is mesmerising as Puccini. He is deliberate with every look, gesture and spoken word. He turns the simple act of sitting down into a grand event with the sharp flick of his coat tails and tenacious crossing of the legs.

The living room is a storytelling apparatus where multiple spaces can exist at once. The actors rearrange furniture to create a café or high street, supported with a smooth shift in sound (Yvonne Gilbert). The red curtain doubles as the proscenium arch of an opera house. And Puccini and Leoncavallo often shoo each other away from the piano with a sarcastic “Do you mind?”. The intention behind setting all the exterior spaces against the domestic backdrop of a living room visually reinforces how the artists’ rivalry invited trouble into their home lives. With the time crunch, you can feel their urgency throughout. For one composer, the race is thrilling – something he can feed off to create his music. For the other, it’s a potential career disaster. Both artists will persist. As Puccini repeatedly says, “The art always comes first”.

That Bastard, Puccini! is a thoughtful play that captures the thrills and challenges of the creative process. It is an existential exploration of how artists can be consumed by their work and what they are willing sacrifice to become one of the greats. Do not miss this show – it is a masterpiece.

THAT BASTARD, PUCCINI!

Park Theatre

Reviewed on 15th July 2025

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by David Monteith-Hodge

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

OUR COSMIC DUST | ★★★ | June 2025

OUTPATIENT | ★★★★ | May 2025

CONVERSATIONS AFTER SEX | ★★★ | May 2025

FAREWELL MR HAFFMANN | ★★★★ | March 2025

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG | ★★★ | March 2025

ANTIGONE | ★★★★★ | February 2025

CYRANO | ★★★ | December 2024

BETTE & JOAN | ★★★★ | December 2024

GOING FOR GOLD | ★★★★ | November 2024

THE FORSYTE SAGA | ★★★★★ | October 2024

THAT BASTARD

★★

“Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy”

Apparently, John Schlesinger’s 1969 American film “Midnight Cowboy” is the only X-Rated film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Despite its bleak setting and outlook, the story of an unlikely friendship between two lost souls in New York City has been variously described as one of the greatest films of the sixties, and later deemed ‘culturally, historically and aesthetically significant’. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel of the same name, its success – according to the director – was largely down to its brutal exploration of loneliness. Both the film and the novel captured the quality of its time place in American cultural history.

Fast forward half a century and the ground-breaking story washes up in the hands of dramatist Bryony Lavery and songwriter Francis ‘Eg’ White who have shoehorned the bromantic fairy-tale of New York into a two-and-a-half-hour slice of musical theatre. A few years ago, we might have been more surprised, but as we have become acclimatised to outlandish choices for a musical’s subject matter, we have learnt to take this sort of thing in our stride. Claiming to be based on the novel, in reality “Midnight Cowboy – A New Musical” duplicates the film’s narrative by doing away with the central character’s back story and presenting it in disjointed flashbacks which, in this medium, get lost in the mix.

Joe Buck (Paul Jacob French) is a naïve yet damaged individual escaping his dead-end life in Texas by reinventing himself as a cowboy and heading off to New York to become a male prostitute. Success doesn’t come easy, to the point that he even pays his first client instead of the other way around. Hooking up with Rico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Max Bowden), he thinks his fortunes are on the rise until he discovers the rat Ratso has taken him for a ride. A mutual dependence grows, however, and after Joe moves into Ratso’s squalid squat, each individual’s isolation finds meaning and connection in a world of hustlers and ne’er-do-wells.

Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy, and we never feel the full force of the unexpected chemistry between the protagonists. Despite strong performances we remain unconvinced, and neither do we feel their desperation. Similarly, Joe Buck’s encounters steer clear of gritty realism. However, whenever we are drawn in, we are suddenly denied access by a song that comes out of nowhere. Francis ‘Eg’ White has form as a songwriter, and there is no denying that there are a fair few excellent numbers, but the score is too often at odds with the text. There are exceptions. Tori Allen-Martin’s gorgeously smoky voice curls round the sultry, soul-disco chords of ‘Whatever it is You’re Doing’. We are in Serge Gainsbourg territory here, with a soft-porn gloss. Bowden’s ‘Don’t Give Up on Me Now’ has a real Tom Waits quality, reprised later by French who throws in shades of Randy Newman. Elsewhere, however, the songs tend to halt the narrative or simply cloud the intent. ‘Every Inch of this Earth is a Church’ strips away the inherent comedy of the classic scene where Joe Buck mistakes a religious fanatic for a pimp. And blow jobs and ballads have never been known to go well together.

It could be ground-breaking, and there is at times a surreal, cartoon-like quality to the show. But it cannot conceal the tameness of this interpretation. As if sensing the emotional detachment, French cranks up the passion during the closing scene, but we feel that it is unearned and inauthentic. There is poignancy in there somewhere, but like the dreams of the hapless heroes, it remains out of reach.

THAT BASTARD, PUCCINI!

Park Theatre

★★★★★

“Do not miss this show – it is a masterpiece”

THAT BASTARD, PUCCINI!

Park Theatre

Reviewed on 15th July 2025

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by David Monteith-Hodge

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

THAT BASTARD

THAT BASTARD

THAT BASTARD

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy”

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 10th April 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

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